Concealed Chamber
At one time many Jain temples contained a concealed chamber (sometimes called bhonyra भोंयरा )to preserve statues during troubled times to hide them. Naya Mandir also has a concealed chamber. A visitor in 1876 described it:
- In Delhi I found a Jain temple which was wholly unknown to Europeans well acquainted with the city; and on prosecuting inquiry, I got its priest to open to me a concealed chamber containing large statues of several of the Tirthankaras richly ornamented.
The chamber has now been given the form of a cave, suitable for peaceful meditation by visiting Jain monks.
Read more about this topic: Naya Mandir
Famous quotes containing the words concealed and/or chamber:
“Pardon, and keep silent, for what is shameful for women must be concealed among women.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“But it is the same thing we are all seeing,
Our world. Go after it,
Go get it boy, says the man holding the stick.
Eat, says the hunger, and we plunge blindly in again,
Into the chamber behind the thought.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)